Hunter
by Rileyanna
Summary: Midori was a normal girl until she meets an old friend. He drags her into a world that she comes to love, but will the tide eventually turn on her? People are disappearing. When will it be your turn?


**Hi Everyone! I know I shouldn't start a new story while my others aren't finished... shame on me. But I just couldn't leave it..**

**I hope you enjoy it!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own IE GO and the storyline, the story is based on something I read once**

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**Prologue  
**  
Ten years ago

When the screaming got too bad, Midori ran away. She had no idea what the row was about, or how it had started. It was new and it gave her a creeping sensation of fearfulness, as though something cold were slithering over her bare skin.  
At first she simply tried not to listen. She pushed back her thick red hair and put her hands over her ears, and did her best to concentrate on the book in front of her. It was large, hard-backed and entitled "The Arctic". The text was too difficult for a seven-year-old, but Midori always loved to look at the pictures. The book was open at a double-page illustration of the Arctic, with a fur-clad man confronting a polar bear. Beyond the two figures was a seemingly endless expanse of snow and ice - pure, empty. Silent.

Another scream rose from downstairs and Midori flinched, her eyes round and shocked. Her hands were still clamped to her ears but it was no good, she could still hear it, and the only thing she could think of was to run away, out of earshot. She jumped up and the book fell unheeded onto the rug.  
Midori ran. She ran out of her room and along the narrow landing, and then down the wooden staircase, her feet clattering on the steps. There was no chance of being heard; her parents were too busy screeching at each other. As she passed the kitchen door, closed in a futile attempt to keep the row from her tender ears, there came another great roar of fury that carried her like a tidal wave down the hallway, running as fast as her legs would carry her, the ends of her blue cardigan flying out like wings. She had just enough presence of mind to close the front door carefully without slamming it, and then she was standing on the pavement, with her chest heaving.

She wasn't crying, but now there were drops of water on her face, running down like tears. Rain was falling, and she had not thought to grab her rain jacket from the peg in the hallway. It was too daunting to think of re-entering the house, the narrow hall that reverberated with anger like the throat of some monstrous beast. Instead, she dashed across the street, the street of terraced brick houses where she lived, slipped through the gate in the wall, and ran for the door of the church. It was open; as she slipped into the cool darkness inside, she was greeted by the familiar church smell of stale incense, wood polish and dusty hymn books.

The door did not lead directly into the church interior; instead there was a kind of vestibule, lined with wooden panels. Leaning against the panelling, turning something over in his hands, was a boy, perhaps a year older than she was, skinny and sharp featured with a shock of untidy dark blue hair. Midori recognized him at once, as anyone in the village would have. Tsurugi Kyousuke, of "those" Tsurugis. The local telephone directory was full of Tsurugis but everyone knew who you meant if you talked about "those" ones - even someone as young as Midori. She had heard her mother talking about them. Kyousuke was the youngest of two; the oldest was already a jailbird. Midori actually thought Kyousuke was nice. Unlike his older brother, he didn't swear at smaller kids or shove them out of the way, and he never laughed at anything she said, even though she was younger than he was. All the same, she hadn't expected to see him here, and for a moment curiosity intruded in spite of her woes. What was he doing in here? She opened her mouth to ask but Kyousuke put a finger to his lips, tilting his head to indicate that someone was in the church.

'Look,' he said in a low voice, holding out his hand. Something gleamed in his palm. 'The key to the bell tower.' Involuntarily, Midori looked upwards. There was nothing to see, only the shadowy recesses of the wooden capsule that enclosed them, but she knew that the looming height of the tower was directly above their heads, thrusting into the grey sky like a rocker awaiting takeoff.  
'It's Silent Saturday, right?' continued Kyousuke. 'The day all the church bells fly off to Rome to get the Easter eggs. Supposedly.'  
Midori nodded, her lavender eyes solemn. She knew the legend, as did all kids from the fire country her age. 'Well.' Kyousuke continued, 'I'm going to go up there and see if it's really gone. I bet it hasn't. They just stop it ringing for the day, that's all. I bet it's still hanging up there.'

Midori heard a metallic click as he slid the key into the lock, then a rattle as he turned it. The door swung towards them, light from an upper window revealing a circular stone staircase, the centre of each step worn with the passage of feet over hundreds of years. Kyousuke looked at her. 'Well? Do you want to come too?' Midori thought about it. 'Yes.'

The stone stairs went up, spiralling away out of sight. It was like clambering into the whorl of a gigantic seashell. After a dizzying series of turns they reached the top of stone stairs, and found themselves in the corner of a square room, the floor laid with wooden planks. There was also a worn and cobwebby wooden staircase, barely more than a ladder, running up to an opening in the ceiling.  
Kyousuke went up first, as agile as a monkey. His head reappeared in the hole. 'It's like a ladder. Just hold on with your hands.'

Midori approached the wooden steps. Kyousuke was right: it was like climbing a ladder, and almost as steep. Halfway up, she began to wonder how she was going to get down again, but by then the floor was a long way below her, and it was easier to go up. When she had almost reached the top, she felt Kyousuke's hands gripping and pulling her up. She flopped onto the wooden floor at the top of the steps and almost immediately sat up again, pulling a face. 'Bird poo.'  
Kyousuke wasn't looking at her; he was standing up. 'There's another ladder,' he said.  
Midori glanced at it as she got to her feet. It was horribly cold here. The large square windows were not glazed, simply louvred, and in places the wooden slats were broken. The wind came straight through, howling dolefully and plucking at her clothes and hair. The combination of the yawning opening leading to the stairs and the sensation of rushing air was vertiginous; it was like being perched in the crow's nest of a sailing ship, rolling and pitching on the sea. It was daunting to think of climbing up the ladder - and this one really was a ladder. All the same she didn't want to look like a scaredy cat in front of Kyousuke. She went over and stood by him, ready to do anything he did.

Kyousuke laid his hands on the ladder and pushed. It shifted, and with the movement a cloud of dust and pigeon droppings came down. He slapped his hands together.  
'I'm not going up there.' she said.  
He shrugged. 'No big deal. Maybe we can see from here.'  
He began to circle the foot of the ladder, peering up at the opening in the ceiling above. 'Yes,' he said eventually. Midori couldn't tell whether he was satisfied or disappointed. He gestured for her to look.  
They both peered upwards. At first all you could see was a tangle of cross-hatched beams. Then Midori leaned forward a little and she saw it. The mouth of the church bell, rimmed with grey-green, with the great round head of the clapper hanging in the centre.  
'It's there,' said Midori. 'It didn't fly to Rome.'  
Kyousuke shrugged. 'Let's look out of the window.'  
'What for?'  
'Maybe we can see as far as my house from here. See my mother waving at us.'  
Midori followed Kyousuke over to one of the windows. The wind was very strong here. There wasn't much to see, either; even standing on tiptoe she could only just peep over the bottom slat of the louvres. She caught a glimpse of slate roofs, a single chimney, grey sky.  
'Boring,' was Kyousuke's verdict. He went over to one of the other windows, the one looking out from the front of the church. Midori didn't bother to follow him; she knew there would be nothing much to see. There had been a shop, long since closed down, on the corner opposite the church, but it had been knocked down months before and the site had not been redeveloped. Beyond the remains of the foundations there was nothing more interesting than a large expanse of allotments.

'Can we go?' she asked.  
Kyousuke had his back to her. He was looking out of the window, and when she spoke he didn't turn round. 'Wait,' he said, preoccupied, and then, 'I'm just...' His voice trailed off. Midori waited for a couple of seconds and then she said, 'Just what?'  
There was no reply. Kyousuke's posture was hunched, as though he were concentrating hard on whatever he could see from the window. He seemed to have forgotten Midori entirely.  
'Just what?' she repeated insistently, and began to make her way over to him, with an idea of pulling on his arm to make him come away.  
'Fuck,' said Kyousuke very clearly. Midori's jaw dropped. He turned towards her and she saw that his face had a white, strained look. He put out his hands. 'Stay there. Don't look.'  
'Don't look at what?' Midori tried to get past him. 'What is it?'  
'It's - it's Ishido Shuuji.'  
'Who?' The name didn't mean anything to Midori. The only thing that interested her right now was whatever it was that Kyousuke didn't want her to see. In spite of the wind and the cold, she couldn't help wanting to look.  
She feinted left and then dodged to the right, slipping past Kyousuke with ease. He didn't as though he had the energy to catch her. He looked as though something essential had drained out of him. He sagged against the rough stone wall and his face was almost greenish. There was a ledge running along the bottom of this wall. Climbing onto it, Midori had a good view between the louvres.  
Who is Ishido Shuuji? What is he doing?

First she saw the foundations of the old shop opposite, fenced off to prevent anyone falling in. She could see a length of red-and-white warning tape twisting in the wind. Beyond the foundations were the allotments. Perhaps half a kilometer behind them was a row of houses, all but lost in the relentless grey rain. Down the centre of the allotments was a dirt track, rutted and muddy, and down this filthy path someone was walking, directly towards the church.

The name Ishido Shuuji had meant nothing to Midori, but she recognized him. She must have seen him a lot of times in the village. He was probably only about twenty, but to Midori he belonged to the ranks of Grown-Ups as clearly as Goliath belonged to the ranks of Giants. Tall, broad-shouldered and hulking, small surly eyes that peered out from under an untidy thatch of platina blonde hair. Even under normal circumstances he would have appeared intimidating to a small child, with his unsmiling expression. Now he looked absolutely terrifying. His hair was plastered flat to his head by the pouring rain, and his eyes were screwed into tiny specks. With his blunt wet head he looked like a man-eating shark.  
That was bad enough, but the rest was worse. Ishido Shuuji was holding something in his arms, holding it across his body so that each end of the bundle flopped and bounced with every lumbering step he took. He had taken off his jacket and wrapped it around his burden, so now he was in his shirt, and it too was plastered to his skin with wet. You could see the outline of his shoulders through the sodden fabric, and the muscles of his arms. The shirt, which had probably been white to begin with, had turned a kind of dirty yellow where it stuck to him - all except the front. The front was red, and it was not a neat, even red with clearly defined edges, as you might get from a panel of crimson fabric; it was a ragged, streaky dark red, staining the shirt from collar to hem and bleeding into the fabric of his jeans.

Midori knew what the red was but she couldn't take her eyes off Ishido Shuuji - his red shirt and his thick arms and the thing he was carrying. She could see that what bobbed and flopped at one end of the bundle were shoes. She tried not to look at what was at the other end but she couldn't help herself. The round, dark object, that was a head, although the way it lolled so limply on the neck meant that the owner of the head was not merely asleep. The red too - that meant something bad for the person whom Ishido Shuuji was carrying across the allotments, back to the village.  
Still she couldn't take her eyes off him. He was coming closer; if he kept going in the same direction, he would come right up to the church. Supposing he came inside? Supposing he knew they were up in the bell tower, spying on him? Anything seemed possible. Ishido Shuuji looked huge to Midori; he looked unstoppable. Supposing he came up those spiral stairs, with his bloody burden in his arms?  
Midori dropped down below the window onto the filthy floor, heedless of Kyousuke standing, sick and trembling, beside her. Then she began to scream.

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**Sooo? What do you think? I'd love to hear it!**

**Review!**

**Warning: this will be a typical slow update story though I do hope to put up a chapter every month. :)**

**Xx Riley**


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